Opinion: Stopgap measures against H5N1 bird flu can only go so far

In the summer of 2023, I connected with an epidemiologist from Kerala. A lush sliver of land along the Indian peninsula’s southwestern edge, it is a place of sleepy backwaters and rolling hills of spices. It is also known for its forests. There, a man from the leafy village of Maruthonkara had died from Nipah virus.

Outbreaks of Nipah virus are alarmingly common: They occur seasonally in parts of Bangladesh and nearly as often in Kerala, where there have been six since 2018. Borne of frugivorous bats — and, on occasion, passed between people who become ill — the virus causes encephalitis, inflaming the brain’s tissues in a process that is fatal in as many as 70% of those who become infected. In a string of WhatsApp messages and voice notes, I was getting this epidemiologist’s perspective on the latest outbreak at the time. And what I took from him surprised me.

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